Samuel Smiles quotes

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The very greatest things - great thoughts, discoveries, inventions - have usually been nurtured in hardship, often pondered over in sorrow, and at length established with difficulty.
Samuel Smiles
Thoughts
Difficulty
Hardship
Inventions
Sorrow
Progress, of the best kind, is comparatively slow. Great results cannot be achieved at once; and we must be satisfied to advance in life as we walk, step by step.
Samuel Smiles
Life
Progress
Results
It is a mistake to suppose that men succeed through success; they much oftener succeed through failures. Precept, study, advice, and example could never have taught them so well as failure has done.
Samuel Smiles
Men
Mistake
Success
Failure
Advice
Example
Study
Succeed
It is energy - the central element of which is will - that produces the miracle that is enthusiasm in all ages. Everywhere it is what is called force of character and the sustaining power of all great action.
Samuel Smiles
Power
Action
Character
Enthusiasm
Energy
Force
Will
Knowledge conquered by labor becomes a possession - a property entirely our own.
Samuel Smiles
Knowledge
Labor
Possession
Property
Labor is still, and ever will be, the inevitable price set upon everything which is valuable.
Samuel Smiles
Labor
Will
Life will always be to a large extent what we ourselves make it.
Samuel Smiles
Life
Will
Lost wealth may be replaced by industry, lost knowledge by study, lost health by temperance or medicine, but lost time is gone forever.
Samuel Smiles
Health
Time
Knowledge
Wealth
May
Medicine
Study
Temperance
Man cannot aspire if he looked down; if he rise, he must look up.
Samuel Smiles
Man
Men must necessarily be the active agents of their own well-being and well-doing they themselves must in the very nature of things be their own best helpers.
Samuel Smiles
Men
Nature
Men who are resolved to find a way for themselves will always find opportunities enough; and if they do not find them, they will make them.
Samuel Smiles
Men
Will
Progress however, of the best kind, is comparatively slow. Great results cannot be achieved at once; and we must be satisfied to advance in life as we walk, step by step.
Samuel Smiles
Life
Progress
Results
The apprenticeship of difficulty is one which the greatest of men have had to serve.
Samuel Smiles
Men
Difficulty
The battle of life is, in most cases, fought uphill; and to win it without a struggle were perhaps to win it without honor. If there were no difficulties there would be no success; if there were nothing to struggle for, there would be nothing to be achieved.
Samuel Smiles
Life
Success
Battle
Difficulties
Honor
Nothing
Struggle
The duty of helping one's self in the highest sense involves the helping of one's neighbors.
Samuel Smiles
Duty
Neighbors
Self
Sense